State Dept Withheld $400 Million Payment to Iran Over Prisoners

Adding to recent allegations about the US paying a $400 million “ransom” for the release of US prisoners from Iran, the State Department today offered a clarification, conceding that while the payment was officially unrelated, the US had been withholding it over the prisoner release issue.

The US denied paying a ransom for the prisoners, but did confirm paying a $400 million cash payment at roughly the same time, a payment which was the result of a Hague Tribunal ruling ordering them to repay Iran for money they’d paid for services before the 1979 revolution, services which the US never rendered.

The Wall Street Journal has been hyping the payment as a secret cash for prisoners exchange, even though the payment was publicly confirmed by the State Department the day it happened. The Hague Tribunal had actually ordered the US to repay Iran quite some time before the prisoner swap happened.

Which ultimately makes this sort of the opposite of a ransom. Instead of the US “paying Iran” for prisoners, the US was forcing Iran to give them prisoners in return for the refund the international tribunal had already agreed they were entitled to.

6 thoughts on “State Dept Withheld $400 Million Payment to Iran Over Prisoners”

Incredibly, the Zionist news media is expressing outrage at the ‘ransom’ being paid by Obama to Iran. Actually, the very opposite is true. It’s the Iranians who are being blackmailed by Zio-Washington.

Message from Washington: ‘We’ll give you some of the money that we owe you but you must give us back our captured spies and mercenaries’.

Once again, Zio-American news media gets it deliberately wrong and tells a whopper.

If I was the Iranians I would check the money and make sure its not counterfeit. Otherwise, if they spend it, the US will accuse Iran of running a US dollar counterfeit ring, and will use that lie to justify new sanctions….